“Used to be an enjoyable place to work, but the morale has gone down quite a bit. ”

Comp & Benefits

Work/Life Balance

Senior Management

Culture & Values

Career Opportunities

Current Employee - Senior Associate in Austin, TX

Current Employee - Senior Associate in Austin, TX

I have been working at Dimensional Fund Advisors full-time (more than 5 years)

Pros

Good pay and benefits, smart employees, beautiful building facilities, living in Austin

Cons

This company used to do more internal promotions, but has changed. They have been hiring a lot of external candidates and providing little to no career development for current employees. Since Eduardo took over, the company has been micromanaged from the top down. At all levels, people feel they cannot or do not have the authority to make decisions without his input. Yet he has no background/experience in marketing, management, sales, etc.The company monitors who gets to work by 8am and who doesn't. Not that other companies don't, but this company only seems to care about what time you arrive, not that you put in a full day's work.

Dimensional is financially sound and is not afraid of spending money on Technology (hardware/software). This provided a nice opportunity to learn and keep the IT skillset current. The rank and file are smart and great to work with.

The money was pretty good, but not enough to compensate for the lousy work environment.

Cons

IT Management is a dysfunctional mess.

Poor work life, balance. I completely understand that the nature of working on an IT operations team requires putting in a significant amount of after-hours work, but there is often consideration given for that effort. That no longer exists in DFA IT.

Despite losing a large number of long term, dedicated, smart and talented employees, the HR department has done little to improve the situation.

Despite the company’s continued, long term financial success, the company continues to invent new ways to reduce the quality of the benefits, charge more for them.

Finally, there are limited career advancement opportunities, all management and lead positions are filled with buddies of the in place management.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Nothing to say that hasn't already been said either on this site or during exit interviews. They haven't listened yet.